San Jose Sharks: Patrick Marleau is here to save the day, or is he?

The San Jose Sharks have signed Bay Area legend Patrick Marleau and the Sharks legend is set to make his long-awaited return and save the day. Or is he?

The San Jose Sharks have gotten off to a less-than-ideal start to their 2019-20 season after losing their first four games, but a reinforcement appears to be on the way in the form of Sharks legend Patrick Marleau.

The Sharks have stumbled out of the gate to an 0-4-0 start after dropping their first two to the rival Vegas Golden Knights and following that up with back-to-back defeats at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks and Nashville Predators.

These are all quality opponents, sure. But the Sharks haven’t just lost these games, they’ve been completely outclassed.

San Jose has been outscored 17-5 by their opponents and have fallen behind 2-0 in three of their first four games. Turnovers, penalties, and a subpar offensive effort have doomed the team so far and much of that could be blamed on an offseason strategy that has seemingly backfired.

Faced with a tight cap situation, general manager Doug Wilson decided to let multiple veteran players such as Joonas Donskoi, Gustav Nyquist, and, of course, captain Joe Pavelski walk in free agency.

The team planned to rely on some of their younger prospects to fill the voids left by their departed veterans but that hasn’t worked out quite as the team had hoped.

Three rookies made the roster out of training camp including defenseman Mario Ferraro who has been a silver lining of a difficult season thus far. However, Ferraro is only here temporarily filling in for injuries.

The real focus was put on rookies Danil Yurtaykin and Lean Bergmann who were both slotted in as top-six forwards to begin the season despite never playing in an NHL game before. As expected, the pair struggled and their roles have since been diminished.

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Bergmann was demoted to the fourth line for Tuesday night’s game whle Yurtaykin was a healthy scratch in the loss. On top of that, Sharks fans were likely expecting a lot more out of promising young winger Kevin Labanc than they’ve seen this season.

All of this allows the return of Patrick Marleau to come at the perfect time for a Sharks team desperately in need of experienced veteran talent. However, pretending Marleau will be the fix to all of San Jose’s problems is foolish.

The Sharks have struggled defensively almost as much as they have offensively. Boneheaded penalties and defensive miscues have plagued the team so far this season and Marleau alone won’t put an end to those issues.

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And it’s also important to remember that this isn’t the same Patrick Marleau from 10 years ago. At 40-years-old, Marleau is a shell of his former self — as evidenced by his career-low season a year ago with Toronto.

Marleau recorded his lowest point total — save for the lockout-shortened 2012-23 season — since his rookie campaign over two decades ago. And the same could be said for his 16 goals which were his lowest as well.

All of this despite averaging over 16 minutes of ice time per game and playing every single game for his team for the 10th consecutive season. That’s right, Marleau hasn’t missed a single game in a decade.

Marleau isn’t the answer, but he hopefully diminishes the problem.